Norris, Frances

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Office—Harvard-Westlake School, Middle School Campus, 700 North Faring Rd., Los Angeles, CA 90077. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Teacher and writer. Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles, CA, teacher of English and creative writing.

WRITINGS:

Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Atlantic Monthly.

SIDELIGHTS: Originally from Kentucky, Frances Norris moved to Los Angeles, California, and became a middle school English and creative writing teacher at the Harvard-Westlake School. In 2005 she published her first book, Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food. Norris tells the story of thirty-three-year-old Julia Daniel, a Los Angeles transplant from Kentucky, who is struggling with depression, a dead-end job, and the recent loss of her father and stepmother in a plane crash. An insufferable boss and a scheming stepsister bent on cheating Julia out of her inheritance thwart the woman's efforts to move her life forward. Therapy, the support of her friends, and a business trip to Arizona bring Julia a chance at true love and an opportunity to achieve her dream of becoming a photographer.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Blue Plate Special "a thoughtful look at making one's way in a world that's uncertain," while Andrea Y. Griffith wrote in a review for Library Journal that "Norris has written a realistic thirtysomething novel, funny and sad." Booklist reviewer Marta Segal Block dubbed Blue Plate Special as "a charming first novel."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2004, Marta Segal Block, review of Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food, p. 558.

Library Journal, January 1, 2005, Andrea Y. Griffith, review of Blue Plate Special, p. 100.

Publishers Weekly, November 22, 2004, review of Blue Plate Special, p. 38.

ONLINE

South Kentucky Book Fest, http://www.sokybookfest.org/ (October 28, 2004), "Frances Norris."